


something has tied me to this man, and i've no knife to cut the line

by strikethesun



Series: The Anne Neville Cycle [1]
Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville, Richard III - Shakespeare
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Multi, Parallels, chances at murder not taken, like it's literally indescribable, nontraditional afterlife, or at least very problematic ones, somewhere between crack and angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24254590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikethesun/pseuds/strikethesun
Summary: chief mate starbuck and anne, queen of england, reflect on getting the chance to kill the man who ruined your life and letting it slip away
Relationships: Anne Neville Queen of England/Richard III of England, Captain Ahab/Starbuck (Moby Dick)
Series: The Anne Neville Cycle [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750822
Kudos: 7





	something has tied me to this man, and i've no knife to cut the line

**Author's Note:**

> title from moby dick: a musical reckoning, specifically "dusk," as an adapted version of a line from actual moby-dick, specifically the chapter "dusk."

“what brings you here?” the accent was thick, absolutely unplaceable, but still comprehensible as english. anne wasn’t used to being addressed so gruffly, but then again, she wasn’t used to being dead, either.

“what brings anyone here?”

a man materialized before her, a little younger-looking than she expected, but the lines in his face fit the contours of his voice. “well, yes, of course, but you caught me off-guard.” he looked her up and down. “i’ve never seen such a...  _ lady. _ so far all i’ve come across here are other whalers.” at  _ whalers,  _ anne began to notice more than just his face— his rough hands, his torn clothing in a style she had never encountered, the fact that he made no motion of deference. 

“i have to admit, good sir, that i’m not familiar with the phrase.” 

“i suppose i wouldn’t expect you to be. i don’t think it requires  _ too _ much explanation, though— i kill whales for a living. wait,” he chuckled, “i must amend that statement. i  _ did  _ kill whales for a living, before a whale sent me to my own watery grave. call me starbuck,” and he extended a calloused hand in her direction.

anne, attempting to maintain a sense of dignity, fingered the heavy folds of her dress. “...call me anne. though, i’ll admit, i’m more used to ‘your grace,’” in a tone that she hoped was playful, not cold. starbuck’s reaction indicated that even if it were the latter, he was a man used to far worse.

“intense. i hope your grace won’t mind me asking what your story is?” 

anne shrugged. “i was the queen of england. 1483 to 1485. nothing to write home about.”

starbuck laughed a broad but rusty laugh, as though it were a motion he wasn’t quite used to. “that explains a lot. i’m proud to report that i actually attained the rank of chief mate. it’s too easy to lose track of time out at sea, but i definitely died in the 1830s. and i’m from nantucket, but that’ll mean nothing to you.   


“it doesn’t, but i’ll try to remember.” anne smiled sweetly, then frowned. “i just got here, or maybe i only just came to, if you’re here too? does anyone actually know how this place works? or where we are?   


“nobody that i’ve come across, your grace— just anne is fine, right?”

“yes, anne is fine, chief mate starbuck. if you’re from ‘nantucket’ i’m not your queen anyways.”   


“yes, well, anne, the answer is seemingly no.” he gestured lamely at the transient scenery around them, shifting translucent blobs that constantly stretched and struggled to look anything like familiar earth scenery. currently, the shapes were trying to approximate a cross between an english forest and a new english forest. “it isn’t exactly conducive to human understanding.”

“well, i’ll admit, you’re the first person i’ve had the pleasure of meeting here, and it might be blind optimism on my part, but i’d like to believe there’s some comprehensible reason as to  _ why _ . but what could we possibly have in common?”

“i assume you didn’t drown in a ship that had just been rammed by an albino sperm whale?”   


“not exactly,” anne sighed, “but i  _ was _ poisoned.”

“potentially more exciting! by whom?"   


anne crossed her arms. “the king of england.”

starbuck paused. “definitely more exciting.”

“oh, come on. i’m sure your...whale experience...was thrilling!”

“you would think, but the drowning part…” starbuck whistled. “i wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

anne picked at a thread on her sleeve. “on  _ anyone?  _ really? no one at all?”

“well, my lady, we don’t all have husbands who would stoop to poison us. some of us have wives who wouldn’t dream of it!” then, starbuck’s shoulders slumped. “and some of us also have also something close to a soulmate who ended up being sort of responsible for your death, and whom you also once nearly killed yourself, but couldn’t bring yourself to.”

anne froze. “ah. i think i get it now.”

“my lady?”

“there was a time, once, when i could have done something about my troublesome husband. he handed me his sword, looked me right in the eye, even lined up my shot by pulling open his shirt…” anne sniffed. “he killed my first husband, starbuck, and then he killed his poor, poor father, too.” at starbuck’s startled expression, anne reassured him: “i won’t bore you with the details. long, messy, dynastic civil war shit. if that alone sounds familiar, you know everything you need to. but i… i could have  _ killed  _ him, man. that was his dirtiest trick of all. not even the poison, or the horror he inflicted on his own nephews, just...the way he looked at me when i took up his sword. such confidence, such a level of control to the point that he  _ knew _ i wouldn’t do anything to him. and he was  _ right. _ that haunts me.”

starbuck slowly nodded. “okay. yeah. i get it too, anne. i had a man in my life with his own sort of poison. not as literal as yours. but i still wound up dead, right? men such as that...don’t go down alone, do they? i pointed a gun at his door, there was that one moment in which  _ everything  _ could have been different, and i wouldn’t be here at all, not yet, not without my mary and my boy…” starbuck turned, suddenly interested in a writhing blob near his boot. “what stopped you?”   


anne let out a harsh laugh. “i think only god could tell you that. he was a cruel man, ugly as all hell too, but i was,” she searched for the right words, “thoroughly compelled. he told me he loved me, and i didn’t believe him, but i was amazed by how well he could lie. i tried to imagine what my life would be like if i was that good at lying, and i thought that maybe, somehow, my dad and the young husband i barely knew and his saint of a father would be all okay. he was only a duke then, but i knew that a man like him wouldn’t stay that way for long.” anne stared at her feet. “i thought, ‘maybe i can still make my father proud by becoming queen.’ or, more truthfully, ‘maybe i can become queen and  _ like  _ it, and not be at the mercy of anyone else anymore.’” she abruptly looked up at starbuck, whose own eyes had wandered back to hers. “i’m no monster, am i?”

“i don’t know, anne. i’d like to think my own purposes were more noble— the safety of my immortal soul? not saddling my boy with a legacy of murder?” starbuck furrowed his brow. “but perhaps it was love, too. i think i really did love my captain. he wasn’t always mad. he paid special attention to me from the beginning. when he lost his mind, i lost something too, and i couldn’t afford to lose the rest.” starbuck stopped, noticing how the scenery now wildly flagellated. “oh, that means our time is almost up.”

anne’s eyes widened. “where do we go after  _ this?” _   


“oh, no, not like that, it just means that our meeting is coming to a close.” starbuck grinned. “you’re an interesting woman, your grace. a monster wouldn’t have stood and listened to me talk for so long.” the ambient sound of static now rose to a deafening roar, causing starbuck to shout: “good thing we figured out the theme of this conversation so quickly! i won’t forget this meeting, anne.”

and with that, she was alone again, and all grew silent and still.


End file.
